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This Sporting Life (1963)

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36 comments in total

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28 out of 29 people found the following comment useful :-
An early 60s masterpiece, 20 October 1999
Author: mackjay from Out there in the dark

This masterpiece by Lindsay Anderson should be on any film aficionado's must-see list. It is an uncompromising study of alienation, social class, maturity, and loneliness. Richard Harris gives a performance of astonishing realism: it seems unlikely he could ever surpass it. The character moves from physicalized anger to tenderness often within a moment. Harris builds to a completely believable dramatic eruption by the climax. He is matched along the way by Rachel Roberts, a great actress in an unforgettable role: a woman unwilling to let go of the past and the pain it contains.

Anderson populates the film with several other memorable characters. There are scenes of nearly unbearable intensity and anguish (Frank's drunken ballad sung in a bar, or Margaret's pleading to be left alone). Also of note, the film functions on two levels at once: in "real time" and in Frank's memory, which he may be coloring by his own reactions (something for the viewer to contemplate).

The black and white cinematography is often beautiful as it poeticizes Frank's plight (for example, near the end of the film, he ends up wandering along moonlit railway tracks in a world of steely, silvery loneliness. Also of note, the wonderfully nightmarish music by Roberto Gerhard, an avant-garde composer who differed with the director on the scoring the film.

See the film on DVD for maximum quality. Although the disc contains no special features, it is good to know this great picture has been preserved in the new medium.

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25 out of 33 people found the following comment useful :-
Richard Harris does his best in this depressing drama., 23 June 2004

Author: Cjc40 (Cjc40@frontiernet.net) from Rochester, New York

Richard Harris; although one of his best works, plays the rugby man always lusting after the widowed Mrs.Hammond, Rachel Roberts. The two act together until the end which ends in tragedy, but nonetheless, you must see this movie because Richard Harris was nominated for an Academy Award as was Rachel Roberts.If you are not in a mood for a sad ending to your day, save this until morning; it is not for the light hearted. Nonetheless, it is regarded as a classic and is also a movie where Richard Harris is playing a part that was actually something to him. Before getting tuberculosis at age 19, he was a professional rugby player. He regarded this as one of his best movies. It is also one of his earliest movies, so you can think about how young "that Dumbledore guy" was. ---He even sings a song in this movie; long before he knew his career would take him into the singing business. Also something to look forward to in the movie. Anyway, highly recommended!

Camelot and The Field are also two Richard Harris must-sees.

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18 out of 20 people found the following comment useful :-
One of the Best of the "Kitchen Sink" Films, 10 January 2005

Author: RobertF87 from Scotland

"This Sporting Life" is one of the most famous of the British "kitchen sink" dramas of the 1950s and 1960s ("kitchen sink" films were very gritty, social realist films which were very popular in Britain at one time).

Frank Machin (Richard Harris) is a brutal, young miner in a city in northern England. Hoping for fame and fortune, he becomes a successful Rugby League football player. He uses his fame and fortune, along with physical violence, to try to force his widowed landlady (Rachel Roberts) to fall for him.

Photographed in bleak black-and-white, the film's scenes of emotional and physical domestic violence are still shocking today. Also notable are the violent, stylishly-shot rugby matches.

The cast are brilliant without exception, especially Richard Harris who manages to invest even his totally unsympathetic character with some degree of humanity.

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18 out of 21 people found the following comment useful :-
Depressing but powerful, 3 December 2005

Author: johnjredington from Ireland

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

If you want two hours of enjoyment, forget about it. This is one of the most depressing films ever made. Every grim feature of post war North of England is piled on in black and white - chimneys, mean terraces, cooling towers, mucky fields, stunted ambition and rising damp. A contemporary view of the early 1960s, you're given all the warts and none of the glitter.

But both performance and plot reek with power and there is a compulsive attraction to see a story through to a bitter end that you know has no trace of sentiment. The tight coldness of Margaret Hammond (Rachel Roberts), steadfastly refusing to let herself be happy for a second time in her life, grinds against the macho world that Frank Machin (Richard Harris) has climbed into.

It is one of Harris's two great roles and came near the start of his career (the other being Bull McCabe in "The Field" which came near the end) and possibly came closest to the forces that drove him through his life. His skill at and love of rugby gives the sporting dimension of the film a realism that very few others can match. Much of the passion that he showed on the screen came from experiences on the playing field in a career that was cut short through illness before he could realise his full potential. Anger at that lost opportunity is seen better in this film than in any other he made.

There are many other films in this genre when British cinema turned its back on elegance or heroism but none has captured the mood of resentment better than this. More than forty years on, it's still as raw as ever.

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13 out of 15 people found the following comment useful :-
Personal rather than political, 21 March 2005

Author: cogs from (e.g. London, England)

Lindsay Anderson's "This Sporting Life" is often characterised as a 'kitchen sink' drama, a form of representation marking the tail end of the British new wave of social-realist cinema. Yet, while "This Sporting Life" uses many of the techniques associated with social-realist cinema, it is often isolated because of the director's attention to personal rather than social material.

"This Sporting Life" is a realist film yet transcends a sociological reading by focussing on the intimate relationship between Frank and Mrs Hammond. The focus of the narrative is on believable characters dealing with common problems and setbacks. The joyless landscapes of the muddied rugby field and the cramped government housing estates are captured in stolid black and white photography. There is also an emphasis on the banalities of working class life seen through the daily domestic chores of Mrs Hammond who is constantly washing, polishing or sowing. Yet, while Anderson contends the film is essentially about the relationship between Frank and Mrs Hammond there is also important social commentary. This is expressed most lucidly through the way in which Slomer and Weaver, as the middle class owners of the rugby team exploit the players for reasons of ego and vanity.

Exploitation by self-important middle-class characters is one of the common elements of "This Sporting Life". In Anderson's film sport is portrayed as a false salvation for the working class. The rugby scenes are filmed with vitality and energy as though they are outside the general malaise of urban life. Nonetheless, rugby is seen as just another way in which the working classes are manipulated and abused, a common theme in the realist films of the era.

Ultimately it is the personal nature of the narrative of "This Sporting Life" that isolates it from the 'kitchen sink' series of films. It goes beyond conventional authenticity to a new level of realism because of its unique characterisations and general lack of social representation. The emphasis of the film is less socio-political; less about displaying working class frustration, anger and repression, and more concerned with Frank as an individual in a doomed relationship with the puritanical Mrs Hammond.

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13 out of 17 people found the following comment useful :-
Stark and uncompromising, 9 June 1999

Author: Himadri Chatterjee (himadri_c@yahoo.co.uk) from London, England

Set in the working class environs of Northern England (Yorkshire), this is a stark and uncompromising film. Richard Harris gives a performance of a lifetime as a rugby player who, both on and off the field of play, seems able to express himself only through violence.

Lindsay Anderson directs wonderfully, insisting on gritty realism, and stripping everything of any hint of cinematic glamour. Unlike the French "nouvelle vague", Anderson wasn't interested in technique for its own sake: he was more concerned with actual substance. Here, he explores the depths of the characters, and their relationships with each other; and, in particular, their emotions, which are volcanic. Never have such naked passions been portrayed on screen with such power. One feels somewhat drained by the end.

Something was happening in the British cinema in the 60s. Where did it all disappear?

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16 out of 24 people found the following comment useful :-
Down to earth and brilliant, 11 March 2005

Author: (kevin.wakelam@blueyonder.co.uk) from United Kingdom

Having seen the film several times I can relate to the lifestyle of the characters, I was a child in the sixties and my memories of life back then are reflected in the atmostsphere that the film generates.

I have read various comments about the film looking dated, and yes it does, but it is a true reflection on life at that time.

It is also a great historical piece as many of the towns and sports arena's used in the film have changed drastically or no longer exist.

I particularly remember the MECCA social club in Wakefield and the various coffee bars that surrounded it, Belle Vue where the Rugby League scenes were shot has stayed remarkably unchanged over the years and I still enjoy the atmostsphere as I watch my favourite team Wakefield Trinity Wildcats.

To see the massive cooling towers in the background stirs memories of being there on a Saturday afternoon with my late Father Norman.

I have a real soft spot for this film and I'm sorry that I have concentrated on my memories rather than the films content.

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9 out of 11 people found the following comment useful :-
Brilliant, Memorable; Yet ...., 2 March 2006

Author: David (Handlinghandel) from NY, NY

I saw this at a theater years ago. It had sunk into what appears to be obscurity -- highly undeservedly. Tonight I saw it on the small screen. And as powerful and, oddly, as shockingly intimate as it is, it doesn't work as well this way.

Why? The reason is the structure. The straightforward scenes are searing.. But there are hallucinations that have Richard Harris now in one situation, then in another, then lying back in the dentist's chair. Call me a Philistine but on a 20-inch screen this Resnais-like "Is it or isn't it?" is hard to follow.

That said, it is a beautiful movie overall. The lead performances have rarely been equaled. Richard Harris, as a headstrong rugby player, is convincing 100%. Rachel Roberts plays the rather dour, confused and grieving widow from whom he lets a room and whom he loves. She was not conventionally beautiful but she had extraordinary screen presence. Their every scene together is chilling and poignant.

The structure is there. The movie is finished and could never be properly well made. It is a sort of angry young man meets French New Wave. Anyone reading this who might be put off by my confession about finding it a bit rough to follow on a TV screen: Please do not be put off. This is a very serious, insightful movie, well performed all around. And you are unlikely to see Harris better in anything else and, sadly, unlikely to see Ms. Roberts in much else at all.

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11 out of 16 people found the following comment useful :-
60's British Film-making 101, 27 July 2005

Author: Spuzzlightyear from Vancouver

You know, the more I watch English movies from the 1960's, the more I fall in love with them, Films like I'm all Right Jack, Darling, Alfie, and now, This Sporting Edge, always feature the U.K. as this gritty place, where living is tough, and the people are tougher. Now, whether that's true to life I'm not sure (though I'd be interested to find out) but I sure get a kick out of these films, and I'm glad to add This Sporting Life to that list.

Richard Harris just acts the hell out of his role as a Miner who finds his forte as a star Rugby player. Let's stop here. Why aren't there any more Rugby movies? Soccer and Boxing are always popular sports in movies, but Rugby seems to be sadly neglected. Perhaps they thought this was the definitive movie on this subject? Anyways, Richard Harris's character, Frank Machin, maybe is a brilliant rugby player, but sort of not so in life, but that doesn't stop him from trying to succeed with what he has. The rich people, who of course, have control over the teams, give him some opportunities to move up in the Rugby world.. Some which he's comfortable with, like dropping his Father like a hot potato, other conditions, he's left wondering how low he has to go to make it big. Oooh.

So while Machin is trying to move up in the Rugby world, at home, he's trying to make the the move on his INCREDIBLY repressed landlady, played by Rachel Roberts. Who's that? I've never heard of her up to this movie, and seeing her in this makes me want to see more of her, because she's fabulous in this.

All in all, a great view.

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5 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
A bleak and truthful portrait of Yorkshire in the early sixties, 14 June 2000

Author: whisperingtree from Shropshire, England

Richard Harris and Lindsay Anderson spent sometime in the West Yorkshire coalfield prior to the filming of This Sporting Life. To call the film gritty and realistic is a truism measured up by the nature of the stark narrative. Harris is profoundly convincing as the miner turned Rugby League player who pursues the arctic charms of his widowed landlady played with sublime restraint by the late Rachel Roberts. For those of us familiar with the Northern man, Wakefield and with Rugby league the stories verisimilitude is almost painful. Watch particularly Harris's trial match (during which the actor broke his leg), his 'singing debut' in the nightclub and the interlude at Kirkstall Abbey. Note too the participation of Wakefield Trinity stars Ken Rollin and Neil Fox, men who were local legends in the 1960's.

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